More clever than Baba

In 1963 U.S. president John F. Kennedy was killed by a mentally disturbed person, Lee Harry Oswald. Though Oswald was himself murdered before there was a trial, from an objective scientific perspective, his guilt as the lone assassin of the U.S. president is a closed case.

When Kennedy was shot word went quickly round the world on radio and newspapers, including India.

One thing to know is that from the very moment of his assassination, people wondered if Oswald was part of a larger conspiracy. In fact, within days, a poll was conducted in Europe that found that a full 80% of people polled said they thought it was a conspiracy.

Hence when news reached Baba and his mandali in India, such ruminations were already included in newspaper reports and op eds. Hence it was natural that Mehera Irani, Baba's consort, who had liked the way Kennedy looked, asked Baba if there was anything to these speculations.

Baba answered that there was not, and that Oswald acted along, and spoke very poorly of Oswald.

However, when this came out in Mehera's biography in 2003, Baba's American followers, grown up in a world steeped in defiant antiestablishment 60s lore could not believe it.

Hence, they concocted the following account. Baba just said that to Mehera so she would be happy, or feel safe, or not get hysterical.

This theory, to save another theory, assumes several things.

1. That Meher showed any inclincation of a preference for an answer.
2. That Mehera was prone to hysteria or irrational fear.
3. That Mehera could not handle tough real-world facts.
4. That Baba treated Mehera like a child, unprepared for the real-world.
5. That Baba said this only to Mehera.

Now it is certainly true that Baba sometimes told a group of people something that was best for them. But in these cases we can easily see his purpose, in light of the circumstances of those people.

But a motive to out and out lie to Mehera, his closest consort, is insulting and self-serving.

There are two things that such people that think Baba lied to Mehera to keep her calm should ask. Polls show that 80% of people in the U.S. believe Kennedy was killed by some kind of conspiracy, and that Oswald didn't act alone. Now ask, do any of those people seem frightened by that? No. And we have to add that Mehera was 9000 miles away and with Baba. How much less frightened would she be? You who believe it was a conspiracy, are you frightened? No. Hence the assumption that Mehera would be highly and painfully fretful of a conspiracy presumes Mehera was an hysterical woman, and since Baba said this to several of his women disciples, more than once, that Indian women in general are hysterical.

Mehera was aware of many 'scary' facts about the world, the atrocities of Hilter, the endangerment of India from threats from China, etc. There is zero evidence that Baba sheltered Meher from the harsh realities of world events. After all Mehera brought up the topic because she read it in the newspaper. Obviously she had access to newspapers and read them as she wished.

The vision of Baba sheltering her from realities, after she went through the 1952 auto accident with him, more horrific an incident than what most of us experience in our entire lives, who saw death and starvation in her life travels, is regressive, and smacks of hidden misogyny, a Victorian view of women unable to endure facts without being upset.

Now, read this account from Mehera Meher, vol 3, p. 281 very carefully, and, most importantly, honestly, and ask yourself if you see the slightest indication of fright or apprehension in Mehera in her account of the incident. 

The President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated on
22 November. Mehera had anunusual experience at the time. It was midnight
in India when Kennedy was shot in Dallas, and everyone was fast asleep. “I’m
a heavy sleeper,” Mehera related “Onoe I’m asleep, I sleep deeply and soundly.
But that night at midnight, I was sleeping lightly, when I clearly heard a noise,
as if someone were snapping his fingers three times by my left ear. I woke up,
wondering who it was. Who is trying to wake me up? No one was there.
I turned over, didn’t give it another thought, and went to sleep.

“The next day, we heard the news that Kennedy had been shot three times.
My experience had been a sign I forgot to tell Baba then, but I remembered
and told him a few days later.”

Baba liked John Kennedy,1' Mehera said, and had remarked that he was a
fine individual. Yet, when the election had been held, three years earlier, the
women were listening to the results at Meherazad on the radio, when Baba
came for his morning tea. “We heard that Kennedy had been elected, and we
were glad, as we didn’t like [Richard] Nixon’s looks.”

“Isn’t it good, Baba,” they said “Kennedy won!”

Baba looked serious for a moment and then, with a sad expression, said,
“He shouldn’t have been elected.”

Mehera was surprised “But he looks so much better than Nixon, Baba.
Did you want Nixon to win? Nobody likes Nixon. Kennedy seems strong and
capable. He has a good personality and prestige.”

Baba nodded, but did not comment further. Clearly, he was not pleased
over the outcome. Now, three years later, when Kennedy was assassinated,
they remembered Baba’s words.

Baba’s gesture for Kennedy was a K; for Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who
shot Kennedy, Baba gestured, thee (awful, useless). After Oswald himself was
shot by Jack Ruby, when reports began appearing in the newspaper about a
possible conspiracy and the involvement of Ruby in the plan, Mehera asked
Baba whether Oswald was the sole culprit who had shot and murdered
Kennedy. Baba told her that he was.

Now carefully notice what Mehera is saying. She said that the sound of a 'snap' that she heard in her sleep, "as if someone were snapping his fingers three times by my left ear," and which she later took to be a sign fro Baba to her of Kennedy's assassination, as it happened at the same time, so did not perturb her that she didn't remember to even mention it to Baba for several days. Does that sound like someone hysterical?

Where is the sign she was scared?

I am afraid that the same over-active conspiratorial imagination that some insist on applying to Kennedy's unfortunate death, in spite of evidence, is applied to Mehera's psychological condition, in spite of evidence. In fact it is entirely in keeping with such pseudo-rational saving of assumptions to find 'some answer' to any counter-evidence, including their own claimed-master's own testimony to his closest disciple. So she must of course become, conveniently, not as clever as them. They (the conspiratorial lunatic) can handle the truth, But Mehera doesn't have their tough-mindedness.

How insulting to both Mehera and Baba.

Below are some of the most massive and exhaustive and scientifically analyzed books on the topic of the death of John F. Kennedy.

• The Death of a President: November 20-November 25, 1963, 1993, by William Manchester (781 pages by award winning author)
• Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK, 1993, by Gerald Posner (573 pages and a finalist for the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for History)
• Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 2007, by Vincent Bugliosi (1,632 pages and winner of the 2008 Edgar Award for the Best Fact Crime category)

In the last and most recent, and most comprehensive, Bugliosi, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor, most famous for his prosecution of Charles Manson, debunks every conspiracy theory that has come to public imagination since the 1963 event.



The final question is the same that I have asked on numerous recent posts, including Atlantis and Forbidden Archeology. The question you must ask yourself is why you need this conspiracy theory? What does it establish that is so important to you? Why can't you be at peace with a world without this theory? Psychologists have posed some very plausible answers to that question. It would behoove anyone who is so addicted to these memes to look into them. If you think it is 'edgy' or 'esoteric' information, you are simply uninformed. Since the day of Kennedy's assassination, the majority of people have believed it is a conspiracy. Hence it is the opposite of esoteric belief. It is the exoteric commonly held belief of the masses. Those who read beyond the pop-culture pablum are really the ones that hold the esosteric (uncommon and informed) view, the very one that Baba shared privately with Mehera in the days after the event.

It is ironic that those that hold to the exoteric mass-culture view of a conspiracy in this case, want to project their own inability to face harsh troubling facts on Mehera. And hence the real joke is on them.



There's one more angle on this subject of persistent myths I'd like to address. Popular myths are very hard to dispel.

In 1828, Washington Irving (the author of Rip Van Winkle) wrote a partly fictitious book A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus in which he invented the fiction that Columbus fought the University establishment of his day who believed the world was flat. This was an invention by Washington Irving. Yet in 190 years of trying, scholars have not succeeded in expunging this myth from the public sphere. It is still taught in most high schools. There is no truth to it at all. In fact Columbus was arguing about the size of the earth, not its spherical, with academics, and they were correct and he was incorrect. If you don't believe me, read Wikipedia. The best book on the subject is Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians, by Jeffrey Burton Russell, 1991.

As everyone knows, myths and popular legends last for a very long time, often centuries or millennia. This is especially true when they fill some psychological niche, and dovetail with how they wish to view the world. I needn't give more examples.

Well in our current time certain myths, like Atlantis and the JFK "conspiracy" are like this. 90% of books on the JFK assassination are conspiracy-oriented. So reading up on the topic tells you nothing, just as pointing to countess High School textbooks, as late as the 1990s, will tell you the Columbus myth invented by Washington Irving.

It is not the fault of people that they don't know how to research things in a scientific way. When they pick a book to read they are naturally going to pick the ones that promise to interest them. If you want to write a book that 'sells' write what people 'want' to hear confirmed. Don't write what they don't want to hear.

I find it sad when someone tells me they have really studied' the topic of the 'assassination.' Such people have never actually read books like the ones listed above, or the Warren Commission Report, the official investigation of the incident. They would never do so, as those are 'part' of the conspiracy.

Now why do I harp on this? The reason is that I find it remarkable that people who claim to follow Baba, and believe he knows everything, and is good, cannot accept what Baba said about the topic, even though what Baba said actually conforms with all the true objective investigations. I find it incredible that they believe a filmmaker like Oliver Stone over their own master. In fact it simply confounds me.

It says something about the power of the mind to remain fixed on its treasured beliefs.

In the end, naturally anyone is free to think with the popular culture on anything they like. But they should not double up on their ignorance by also acting as if they have esoteric rare beliefs. These are the dumb popular beliefs. This is the Hollywood and dime-store belief. It's so silly it just makes me shake my head. Oh well.

I guess they think they are sticking it to the man, or are very sophisticated, can handle the truth or something. But when believing pop-media hype out of Hollywood and Simon and Schuster is sophisticated, my gosh. Oh well. My gosh. I guess Disney® is the new esoteric.